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Up-to-the Minute PHP News, views and communityen-usTue, 03 Mar 2015 18:22:56 -060030http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/20645http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/20645
On the SitePoint PHP blog Bruno Skvorc has posted a guide to what's new in PHP 5.6, the upcoming release of the language.

It's been a while since the release of PHP 5.4, and new versions have been coming out faster and faster ever since. When 5.5 hit and introduced some unexpectedly great features, the PHP community breathed a sigh of relief and regained hope of a more dedicated, structured and smart core development. Whether or not we'll actually get this remains to be seen, but the future does indeed look promising, especially if one looks at the PHP 5.6 changes made so far.

He goes through the list of things (so far) that will be in the upcoming release:

MIME types in the CLI web server

Internal Operator Overloading

Uploads of over 2GB are now accepted

POST data memory usage decreased

Improved syntax for variadic functions

Constant Scalar Expressions

PHPDBG bundled by default

Zip improved

Importing namespaced functions

Each item on the list comes with either some sample code to show its use or a brief explanation of the features it adds or updates.

Link: http://www.sitepoint.com/new-features-php-5-6]]>Tue, 14 Jan 2014 12:56:39 -0600http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/20531http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/20531
The PHPClasses.org site has released the latest episode of their "Lately in PHP" podcast series with episode #42, "New PHP 5.6 Developments".

s the release of PHP 5.6 gets closer to happen in first semester of 2014, more new features are already being implemented including a new PHP debugger. The latest PHP 5.6 developments is one of the main topics discussed by Manuel Lemos and César Rodas in the episode 42 of the Lately in PHP podcast.

They go through some of the things that have been discussed to be included in PHP 5.6 including

The proposals of new features for PHP 5.6 continues to come. Several new interesting features are being discussed like named parameters, anonymous classes, nested classes, among other proposals. This was the main topic discussed by Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert in episode 40 of the Lately in PHP podcast.

Link: http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/218-More-New-Features-for-PHP-56--Lately-in-PHP-podcast-episode-40.html]]>Tue, 15 Oct 2013 09:28:20 -0500http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/18910http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/18910
On NetTuts.com today there's a new article from Gabriel Manricks looking in to the future of the PHP language at what's slated to be included in PHP 5.5., the next major release.

The first PHP 5.5 alpha has been publicly released. After having some time to test and experiment with it, we can now bring you our in-depth overview of what to look forward for!

He walks you through the installation (compiling, not via packages) of this latest release once you've downloaded it. He then goes down the list of features, some of which are pretty recent additions to the planned release including: generators, lists in foreach, the new password API, cURL updates (SMTP) and a few smaller updates.

]]>Tue, 18 Dec 2012 11:48:40 -0600http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/18641http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/18641
Sherif Ramadan has a new post that gets into some good detail about what you can expect in the upcoming PHP 5.5 release with loads of new features.

There's been some talk about PHP 5.5.0 over the past couple of months even though it is barely on the horizon. The reason for this is that the PHP project has seen some increased levels of activity over the last two years since the dawn of PHP 5.4 and now in to the early twilight phase of PHP 5.5.0-dev. For those of you that haven't been following the internals mailing list I'm about to give you a quick test-drive and sneak-peak at PHP 5.5 using the latest 5.5.0-dev branch (which is still TBD).

Obviously, since the actual release of this version has yet to be determined, some of this may change over time. He gets into some of the major advancements and features that will be included like:

the "finally" keyword

list() support in foreach()

the Password Hashing API

generators

a new property accessor syntax

scalar type hints

Code samples are provided in some places to help make a bit more sense out of the example.

]]>Mon, 22 Oct 2012 12:09:02 -0500http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/17579http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/17579
With the first stable release of PHP 5.4 not too far off, it's important to understand the new features it offers and how to use them effectively. In this new post to DZone.com Giorgio Sironi shows how to "write clean code" with these new features, including a few snippets of code to illustrate.

After seven release candidates, it's clear PHP 5.4 is coming: as always the improvements from the previous minor version are many. [...] Let's look at the new features and score them on two metrics: usefulness, and potential for abuse. I'll try to avoid discussing non-language related matters.

He starts by pointing out some of the "gotchas" that can happen with traits (like errors thrown when more than one method is named the same and that they are a separate hierarchy), the short syntax and dereferencing support for arrays, closure binding, upload progress and more. For each of them he gives two measurements - the usefulness of the feature and the potential for abuse.

]]>Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:08:18 -0600http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/17471http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/17471
Over on the PHPClasses.org blog today there's a new post looking at the next major upcoming PHP version (5.4), what it comes with and why you might want to make the upgrade.

PHP 5.4.0 is planned to be released on February, 2 2012. By the time you are reading this, it may already been out. It is a result of many months of development. Many features were proposed for this release. Some made into this version, others did not make it at least for now. So, now you may be wondering which interesting features really made it. Let me tell you more about some of the more interesting features present in this release.

The article mentions some of the usual major features that can be found in just about every "in PHP 5.4" list - traits, the built-in web server, binary notation for integers - but it also includes some of the features that didn't make the cut this time (like annotations and the inclusion of the APC caching extension). Also included are questions to ask to see if the upgrade is for you like:

Do you need the new features?

Do you need the updates now?

Try it and test it in dev first - does it meet your needs or cause other bugs?

The planned release for PHP 5.4 is during the first week of February (2012). Additionally, if you'd like to give the PHP development group some help testing out the latest Release Candidate, you can find instructions here.

]]>Tue, 31 Jan 2012 10:05:03 -0600http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/17437http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/17437
On the KingFoo blog today there's an excellent look at everything new coming up in PHP 5.4, the next version of PHP set to be released in early February.

PHP 5.4 will be stable soon.
In this post I'll try to give you an overview and examples of the new PHP 5.4 features. If you want to try out PHP 5.4 (which is currently in RC3), it has to be installed first. I suggest that you try this out on a virtual machine so you don't break your current PHP version.

Improvements on the list include:

Improved Session Extension

Built-in webserver

Traits

Array dereferencing

Method calls through arrays

Binary notation for integers

Instantiate a class without running constructor

Improved JSON extension

Improved CURL extension

And this is just a start - they detail each of the improvements and provide code where needed to illustrate the update. They also link over to the PHP.net manual (or PHP bug tracker) for more information on the new feature/change.

]]>Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:50:42 -0600http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/16681http://www.phpdeveloper.org/news/16681
On the Mayflower blog there's a new post looking at the upcoming traits support PHP 5.4 will have to offer. (Note: original post in German)

PHP 5 was a big step in the right direction and today resembles the object-orientation of Java very much. At the end of June 2011 one more step was made, not based on Java, but from another popular language - Scala. The new language feature called Traits allow class and cross-code reuse with no vertical transmission. It is basically a relatively simple mechanism, which is explained below using a simple example.

Their examples are a "before" and "after" of the same functionality - creating a controller that can respond with a JSON message. The first example shows a simple controller that can respond in JSON, a JSON class that can work with HTTP and a User class that implements the Serializable interface on the JSON namespace. The second example redefines the Serializable interface as a trait that can be used inside the User class rather than inherited by it.

There's also a brief look at using multiple traits in one class and what to do about naming conflicts that might pop up and the prioritization method that's been put in place to help.

On the episode 12 of the Lately in PHP podcast, Manuel Lemos and Ernani Joppert discuss the latest developments and what is still stalling the progress of the developments needed to make PHP 5.4 happen.

They also have a bit of discussion about which browser is better for development - Chrome or Firefox (and the places Chrome might be lacking). You can listen to this latest episode either through the in-page player or by downloading the mp3 to listen at your convenience.